


In So Many Words

by Siria



Category: Thoughtcrimes
Genre: Challenge: Porn Battle V, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-19
Updated: 2008-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-03 20:16:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her gift gives her secrets she was not meant to hold, inscribes the particular calligraphy of a thousand stranger's thoughts on the inside of her skull.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In So Many Words

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Porn Battle V.

Her gift gives her secrets she was not meant to hold, inscribes the particular calligraphy of a thousand stranger's thoughts on the inside of her skull. For all her efforts at blocking, Freya knows Consuela in the next office over is pregnant and trying to keep it a private joy for as long as she can; the guy who comes to fix the photocopiers occasionally is cheating on his taxes; the smile of the blonde barista in Starbucks hides a fear about the lump she's found on her breast; Brendan wants her with a clarity of thought, a directness, that startles her a little the first time she becomes aware of it.

He never says anything to her. There's nothing new in the way he speaks her—brusque and warm and whining by turns—or touches her—a hand on her elbow to get her attention, hand against her back to push her down and away from the explosion, gentle punch to her shoulder to congratulate her on a job well done. But in the moments when he's day-dreaming and her guard's down, just a little, she knows all the things he keeps silent; knows that that photographic memory of his flicks through all the things he won't let himself have and shows him what could be.

Her hair, dark against the white of her blouse, what it would look like strewn over the pillows on his bed in the first light of morning; the wide curve of her smile, what it would feel like if he were to trace it with fingertips, how his grin would reshape itself to fit her own; all the times her body has pressed up against his in a thousand unintentional, welcome ways, what it would be like to keep her there, against him.

It's disorienting at times to see this slant on herself, to have someone look at her from the outside and see so many things she's never noticed in the mirror. It's worse to know that she can never let herself break his trust by telling him she knows, by asking if she really is that cranky in the mornings, or if she really twitches her nose twice every time she's about to sneeze.

She knows what he's thinking. Brendan's thinking he's being professional; he thinks he's holding himself apart like she wants; Freya thinks he's keeping himself alone.

A couple of weeks later, they're staking out an apartment building in the long hours past midnight. Harper thinks it might be housing three terrorists; Freya and Brendan both know they're wasting their time. Still, they sit there dutifully, bickering about what station to listen to, low in the background, while working their way through half a bag of doughnuts and two large coffees.

The caffeine jolt leaves Freya wide awake and restless, but Brendan dozes off at one point, a week of late nights and early mornings leaving him slumped against the window, head back and mouth slightly open. She's repressing the desire to do something a little bit juvenile, take advantage of him being an even bigger dork than usual—she thinks her cell phone has a camera—when she sees what he's dreaming.

Technicolour bright, threaded through with longing, she sees a flicker-film of images, unspooling behind Brendan's eyes faster and faster—stripping her of her clothes; pressing kisses to the edge of her smile, her collarbone, the curve of her breast; dark hair and long limbs tangled together in his rumpled bed-sheets. Fingers stroking her thighs, her belly, between her legs, making her shiver and shake beneath him; his mouth, right there, his tongue, her fingers twining in his hair while he takes her apart. His smile, oh god, the smile on his face when he moves inside her, the careless joy in his thoughts that winds its way under her rib cage, that pulses in her blood with the same adrenaline that makes him whimper and shift in his sleep—it's love, she thinks, amazed; he loves her with a depth that goes beyond where her mind can follow.

"Brendan," Freya says, shaking him gently by the shoulder til he wakes. "Brendan."

He blinks up at her at first, disoriented, then sits up slowly; from the look on his face, the spiralling crescendo of his thoughts, she knows the moment when he realises that what he's seeing in her is the same as what she's sees in him. "Brendan," she says, voice thrumming with the joy of an unhoped-for gift, freely given, "Tell me." He smiles at her, wide and winning, and draws in breath to speak.


End file.
